1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to beverage brewers and methods for brewing beverages, and more particularly to disposable beverage brewers for brewing individual servings.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous apparatus and methods for brewing beverages, such as coffee, are available. Many of these are, however, not readily adapted for preparing individual servings of beverages, such as may be desired for home, restaurant or institutional use, to obtain a single cup of fresh beverage. Although individual servings may be made from such materials as "instant" coffee, many consider beverages made in this manner to be inferior to beverages made from, for example, fresh coffee grounds.
Some apparatus have been constructed to brew small quantities of coffee from coffee grounds. These usually provide for pouring hot water through a container or cartridge of packed coffee grounds and directly upon the grounds. A refillable container is provided with several of these apparatus (for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,456,010 and 3,215,060), and hence the user must measure a quantity of grounds into the container before using. Also the container and other parts must be cleaned after each use. Other apparatus (for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,822,273; 2,899,310; 2,936,695; 3,083,101; 3,446,624; and 3,811,373) employ disposable cartridges or containers which are supplied with a pre-packaged quantity of coffee grounds. In most of these some portions of the apparatus are non-disposable; however, the entire apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 2,822,273 is disposable. Still another apparatus, that of U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,420, utilizes a disposable "tea bag" like container in which the coffee grounds (or other material) is pre-packaged, and which is immersed in hot water to prepare the beverage.